A Family Business
by liptonrm
Summary: The Winchesters never stay and they leave more than burned corpses behind when they leave.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I own absolutely nothing. It's all Kripke's and the CW's and blah blah blah. We all know who the real brain trust is around here.

Rating: PG-13

Spoilers: General for the series. Takes place in two time periods, one pre-series and the other situated at some point between 3x04 (Sin City) and 3x05 (Bedtime Stories).

Author's Notes: One chapter will be posted a week, until it's finished. I'll put up my full notes at the end, but there are a few people I have to thank right off the bat. First, always and forever, is lj user hiyacynth who chivvied and encouraged me at every turn. This is as much her story as it is mine, and all the better for it. I never would've written it without her. I also must thank lj user quellefromage who generously volunteered to beta my little story and made it immeasurably better. She was willing to ask the hard questions, and for that I truly thank her. Also indispensable was the Baylor Sister who has listened to me ramble about this since before there was an actual plot, just a couple vivid scenes and a character or two. And, a multitude of thanks to lj user baylorsr , if only for saying, "More, please," at several key intervals when my confidence was at its lowest. This story is a milestone for me, in a lot of ways, and I never would have reached it without these amazing people. Thank you all so very, very much.

* * *

**Chapter One**

_November 23, 1996_

_Lansing, MI_

The car rolled to a grumbling stop in front of an innocuous house on a suburban street lined with winter dead trees. A strange loaded silence hummed between its occupants. Outside the world was gray and dim, the early morning light unable to break through the low-hanging ceiling of clouds. A tension sparked down Dean's nerves that was exactly like and completely different from the usual post-hunt buzz.

He cut a glance over to his dad in the driver's seat. John was filthy, streaked with mud and dead leaves, just like they all were, exhaustion apparent in the off-kilter cant of his head. Dad always looked his worst right after a kill, all of his adrenaline used up and burned out and he was left running on too many days without sleep and stale caffeine. His left hand gripped tight to the steering wheel while his right gently eased the key from the ignition. It was too quiet in the car without the drone of the engine for accompaniment.

Dad glanced in the rearview mirror and his eyes tightened. Most people wouldn't have noticed the breath he took, almost a sigh, or his split-second hesitation before turning to the back seat.

"You all set?" Dad asked the girl in the back, less gruffly than Dean expected.

"Yeah," was the quiet reply. He turned his head slightly and caught a glimpse of her huddled by the door. Her hair was a mess, half still pulled back into a braid with the other half flying around her head in slimy clumps. Old tear tracks streaked the dirt on her face but the skin underneath was pale. She looked older than most seventeen year-olds he knew, nearly as old as Dean felt most days.

She looked up and caught his gaze. His head jerked straight and he blinked. He needed to get back to the house, back to Sammy.

The back door creaked wearily open a second later, the springs in the seat squeaking.

"I-" Her voice was tense and dry. She cleared her throat with an awkward cough. "Thank you."

She jumped out of the car and slammed the door resolutely before anyone could reply.

Dad turned forward, his eyes focused on some point beyond the windshield. The engine turned over with a growl, the power of it settling some jangling chord in the back of Dean's mind. He glanced in the side mirror and saw her standing there, still as a statue, watching the car with unblinking eyes. As they pulled away from the curb he caught a flash of white and blonde as her nightgown-clad little sister slipped up behind her and grabbed her around the waist. He wasn't entirely sure which was holding the other upright.

Dean watched them shrink in the distance until the road curved and they disappeared from view.

_September 13, 2007_

_Petoskey, MI_

The noise and clatter of the morning rush hummed around their table. Sam tapped away at his laptop, utterly oblivious to the eggs congealing on his plate or the waitress refilling his coffee cup.

Dean kicked him underneath the table, a quick jostle of boot to ankle. Sam's head shot up, eyes narrowed in annoyance.

"Dude," Dean said. "She was totally into you."

Sam grunted and turned back to his websearch. The pattern that he thought he'd seen during the job with Chuck up in Iron Mountain — and had slotted into the 'Future Hunts' folder at the back of his brain — was starting to piece itself together. He just needed a few more uninterrupted seconds to double-check a couple last things.

He jerked, slamming his knee into the underside of the table with a muffled thud. Dean, the fucker, had nailed him in the shin with one of those steel toes. He glared at Dean who beamed unrepentantly back at him, a piece of bacon hanging out of his mouth.

"What?" Sam snapped.

Dean only frowned and finished chewing his bacon, the index finger of his right hand tapping out a rhythm in the general proximity of Sam's plate. Sam expressionlessly pushed his plate over. He wouldn't be surprised if half the diner heard the rapturous noises his brother was making around the heaping forkfuls of hashbrowns he shoveled into his mouth. At least he'd eased off the whole 'all bacon double cheeseburgers all the time' diet. Too much of a good thing must really exist, even for a Winchester.

Sam clicked on one last link. The immediate grin that spread over his face was proof enough that the internet had brought him exactly what he needed.

"You figure out our next hunt there, Columbo?" Dean asked around a mouthful of potato. He swallowed and reached for his coffee mug. He leaned back in the red-checkered booth and stretched his arm out idly along its top.

"Six people have gone missing in the past month and a half." He glanced back at the laptop screen and flipped from the web browser to his notes. "They head out into the woods, for whatever reason, and disappear."

Dean involuntarily reached for the laptop and Sam pulled it out of his reach. Screw that pissy little look, Dean knew the rule about getting grease on the keyboard.

"You sure it's our kinda gig?" Dean asked while wiping his hands on his thighs, like that was any kind of grease solution. "People get themselves lost in the forest all of the time without any otherworldly help. Hell, dumbass drunken hunting accidents could probably account for the whole thing."

"They could, except I checked and hunting season doesn't start for another month." He continued on in spite of Dean's skeptically raised eyebrow. "And I checked the statistics on disappearances in that area for the season. It's the middle of nowhere but it's not like some Stephen King novel, people don't generally tend to disappear. There might be a few missing persons a season but not in these numbers and not under these circumstances."

He handed Dean the print-outs he'd put together earlier that morning. "The first disappearance was Shauna Leischman. She and her boyfriend were tourists from Washington state. The boyfriend, Ryan, reported that they had pulled over to fix a flat tire in the middle of the afternoon. One second she was handing him lugnuts and the next she was gone. The next two disappearances were natives of the area: Mike Heyse was a high school teacher who was last seen leaving his neighbors' house one evening and Danny Owen's parents put him to bed one night only to find it empty the next morning." Sam started ticking off occurrences on his fingers. "Heather Nelson was visiting friends when she went for a morning run and never came back and Jack Saunders went on a late night grocery store run and never actually made it to the store. The latest, Hector Garces, was a day laborer picking blueberries when he vanished. When interviewed his fellow workers said the last time they saw him he was going behind the tree line for a quick break."

Dean hummed under his breath and flipped from page to page. He raised a quizzical eyebrow over the top of the papers. "You sure this isn't another group of wackos like in Minnesota? Cause I'd hate to be stuck in i_Deliverance_/i-territory for real this time."

Sam shrugged. "If it is they're not being particularly careful about their activities." He shook his head with a frown. "Plus, the records don't bear out. In Hibbings there were years of abductions and the missing persons statistics were completely out of whack with the surrounding areas." He glanced back down at his notes to quickly double check. "Everything about these disappearances is anomalous; there's no historical pattern. Until this year things around there looked pretty much the same as everywhere else."

"And where is 'there', exactly?"

Sam pulled out the map and pointed to an area a bit further south. "Here. "They're all situated in a five mile area a couple miles north of Hart."

Dean gave Sam a long, assessing look. Sam knew that look, and knew that behind his slightly squinted eyes Dean was carefully slotting all of the information into place. Sam held his brother's gaze, certain down to his toes that this was something they had to look in to. Dean smirked and slapped his hands down on the table. "Well, hell, Sammy. Sounds good enough for me. Maybe we'll even meet up with Fred Bear while we're at it."

Sam stared at Dean's back as he followed him out of the diner, thinking about all of the things they hadn't said. They'd been running from hunt to hunt since Wyoming because neither of them wanted to stop. As long as they had something to occupy their time, to fill the long empty road with purpose, they wouldn't have to listen to that clock that ticked down the seconds they had left.

_September 13, 2007_

_East Lansing, MI_

The knot in Angela's stomach drew tighter as the phone on the other end of the line rang again and again and again with no answer. When the voicemail picked up for the ten millionth time she flipped her phone shut on her sister's bland pre-recorded voice. She had to physically restrain herself from picking up her heaviest text book and throwing it across the room.

"Damn it, Gillian, where the hell are you?" she growled, fear and frustration roping around each other in her throat.

"She still not answering?" Her roommate Christa asked from amidst her scattered chem notes. She was seated at the tiny table they'd been able to squeeze into the nook between the living room and kitchen of their tiny one-bedroom apartment. It was small but neither of them had nearly enough for a bigger place. The glamorous life of grad student chic had gotten old awfully fast.

"No." Angela crossed the room and plopped down in the other straight-backed kitchen chair, her back to the bulk of the apartment. "And it's not like her. She's not the greatest communicator in the world but she's never not called me back." She scrubbed her hand through her dark blonde hair. "Something's wrong. I know it is."

"Have you asked your mom?" Christa asked in that calm, reasonable voice that Angela both envied and hated. "Maybe she's heard from her."

Angela shook her head and grimaced. "I don't want to worry her." She shrugged. "Anyway, Gillian never calls home, at least, not voluntarily." She stood up and paced over to the sliding doors that opened onto their minuscule second floor balcony. She stared out at the cars speeding by on the road underneath. "She's probably fine, probably neck deep in another one of her wild goose chases or half a week into the next three week bender." She sighed and leaned against the smooth glass doors. "It doesn't matter. I've gotta go up there and make sure."

"Are you positive?" Christa came over to stand beside her. "The term just started and you're gonna miss at least a couple days of class. You and I both know that midterms'll be on us before we know it." She put a hand on Angela's shoulder. "Like you said, she's probably fine. And it's not like she can't take care of herself."

"I know, but-" Angela swallowed and looked helplessly at her friend. "I have to go. She's my sister."

Christa sighed and nodded, heroically not voicing her practical Gillian-shaped concerns. "Well, if you're going you'd better take my car. Your POS wouldn't make it to Grand Ledge, let alone Hart."

Angela grabbed her hand and squeezed. "Thanks." She whispered. She took a deep breath and tried to will away the panic that was spinning around in her chest. It had always been her and Gillian against the world. There was nothing she wouldn't do for her big sister.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

_November 21, 1996_

_Waverly High School_

_Lansing, MI_

School had been over for long enough for the library to have nearly emptied out. Gillian was bent over in one of the hard wooden chairs, a paperback held in one hand and her head propped in the other. She was pretty sure that she'd read this book countless times since childhood but it was the only thing she could think to read. It was comforting and familiar in a way that had nothing to do with the storms going on around and inside of her. She only had a few more minutes before Angie was done with whatever after school extravaganza she had going on today — 'student government,' the responsible part of her brain that still remembered how to be a big sister whispered at her — and life came crashing back down. She was going to enjoy every second of peace that she could.

She didn't want to think about anything but the words on the page.

Gillian glanced up for a second and caught that kid staring at her again. She'd seen him in here all week, ostensibly roaming around the shelves but he was always staring at her. It was starting to creep her out. She'd never seen that skinny, floppy-haired kid before in her life and now he wouldn't go away. Even Lauren, who had every right to pester her about her feelings, had backed off after a day. That stupid brat was getting on her last nerve.

She put her book down and stood up. A week ago she wouldn't have done anything, she would've sat there and let that kid do whatever it was that he wanted to do, but that was a week ago. The entire world had changed since then. She'd ignore the whispers when she walked through the halls and she'd endure the pitiful looks teachers sent her way but some snot-nosed stalker was the final straw.

By the time she made it over to the pitiful folklore/mythology section of Waverly's "vaunted" high school library the kid had his nose buried in some book about the Norse pantheon. If not for the quick, nervous flash of his eyes she almost would've bought his act.

"Hey," she hissed, her voice a whisper because libraries were still sacred areas. His head whipped up. "What do you think you're doing?"

He gazed up at her, eyes wide in a pantomime of innocence. "Looking for a book," he bit off a little peevishly with an undertone of i_you crazy bitch_/i thrown in for good measure.

"I've seen you in here every single day this week." She leaned in and down until her nose was nearly level with his. She hardly even noticed that she'd backed him into the shelf. "I've seen you watching me and I don't like it. I don't care if you're curious or if you and your buddies get a kick out of laughing about the weird chick whose dad was killed or if maybe you're just some sweet, innocent kid whose only crime is reading a book. I'm sick and tired of seeing you hanging around." A small part of her was trying to get her to shut up and step back out of that poor kid's space. This wasn't the way she acted, this wasn't who she was, she was a good girl. There was another, louder part of her, though, that needed this, needed to lash out and make someone hurt as much as she did.

The kid's face was completely still and expressionless and she had no way of knowing what that meant. He didn't even flinch. Somehow that made her even angrier, her knuckles turning white around the spine of the book in her hand. Her arm tensed and she knew she was going to clock him upside the head, she could see herself doing it. She'd never hit anyone, not for real, in her entire life.

"Hey, Sam, you okay?" Her back stiffened at the interruption of a voice with enough violence in it to match her own. The kid used the distraction to slip past her.

"Yeah, I'm fine," was the kid's stolid reply.

She turned and saw the kid, Sam, standing by some guy she recognized. He was in her chemistry class, he was the one who always knew just what to say to make the class descend into chaos and make Mr. Gigante look like he was having a stroke. But now he didn't look anything like that person. He stood still and focused, body poised and a glare so fierce that it should've had her tripping over herself to get away. Now she raised her chin in response. She wasn't going to back down and she wasn't going to feel guilty for bullying someone younger than her, no matter how sick her stomach felt.

He narrowed his eyes and took a step forward. He would've taken another — she was counting on it, ready for it — if not for the hand that reached up and grabbed his arm. He and Sam shared some indefinable look and the violence flowed out of him. Without looking back at her they turned as one and left the library.

The library door slammed and her spine deflated, collapsing against the shelf behind her. She rubbed a hand over her face and was surprised to find that she wasn't crying, that she didn't even feel like she wanted to. All she felt was hollow and a tiny bit frightened of the person she was becoming.

"Gillian?" She looked up and Angie was there. She had no idea how long she'd been slumped against the books. Angie looked genuinely scared by what she saw on her sister's face. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah." Gillian took a deep breath and stood up. She pulled a grin up from somewhere deep inside and prayed that it was enough. She needed to protect her little sister from everything that was bad in the universe, including herself. "Yeah, just kind of tired, I guess."

Angie nodded and was relieved enough to give her a small smile in return. "Are you ready to go?" She asked carefully.

"Just let me get my things." Gillian swallowed and turned to pack up her stuff. She could do this, she could hold it all together. She had to.

* * *

Dean pulled the beat up old GMC truck into the muddy tracks that constituted the driveway of the tiny house Dad had somehow found to rent. He'd known a guy who had a buddy who could get them in, no questions asked, as long as the Winchesters took care of a little poltergeist problem at the nearby car plant. Apparently nothing scared Big Auto more than the pissed-off ghost of some guy killed on the line.

It was that same friend of a guy, Tim, who'd dug up the old beater of a truck that had gotten Dean and Sam back and forth to school. There might've been some doubt in his voice when he'd let Dean use his garage to bang it back into some kind of working condition but there'd been none by the time it was running. It might be a piece of shit but anything was better than sitting out at the bus stop freezing his ass off.

Dean glanced over at the sullen lump on the other side of the bench seat. Sam hadn't said a word since the fiasco in the library but he didn't need to. His pissy silence said plenty. "Great use of those surveillance skills back there, champ."

"Shut up," Sam snipped, his brows furrowing even closer together in frustration. "I told you yesterday that she'd made me. You should've covered for me instead of making out with cheerleaders in the locker room."

"Yeah, that was pretty awesome." Dean smirked. Hell, he wished he'd been getting some in the locker room instead of making small talk with the choir geeks and the band dorks. But, hey, if that's what Sam wanted to believe he wasn't about to disabuse him of the notion.

"You're so gross." The tone in Sam's voice said it all. Dean struggled to keep from busting out with a belly laugh. He wasn't sure what switch had flipped in Sam's brain to turn him into this whiny little brat but he was bound and determined to get all the fun out of it that he could.

Dean got himself under control with a deep breath. He rolled his eyes with a flourish. "Yeah, well, at least I got something done. Dad's gonna be thrilled with what you accomplished."

"Shut up," Sam repeated. He kicked his door open and then slammed it hard enough to make the whole car shake. He barged through the swamp that passed as a front lawn, backpack bouncing in time to every snitty stomp.

"Real eloquent there, Sammy," Dean said quietly to the steering wheel. He sighed and rolled his shoulders in an attempt to loosen the kinks that had been his constant friends ever since Sammy turned thirteen. Once upon a time there'd been a little kid who thought he had the coolest big brother in the world. As fun as riling Sam up could be sometimes he really missed those days.

He pushed his own door open. Its rusty old hinges sounded as tired and stiff as he suddenly felt. He slowly followed Sam's path into the house, the cold drizzle seeping down into his bones. It felt like it had been raining for months.

It wasn't much warmer inside, but at least it was dry. He could track Sam's pissed-off march to his room by the muddy footprints he'd left on the carpet. That little bitch was so cleaning that mess up, with his tongue, if necessary. He pitched his bag in the general direction of the couch and turned toward the kitchen. He needed coffee more than he needed to breathe.

Dad was sitting straight-backed at the rickety old table, his hands clasped around a steaming mug. The only hint that he'd been up since yesterday was the hunch in his shoulders. There was a little mud in his hair, the only evidence of whatever it was he'd been getting up to while Dean was stuck in school.

"Long day?" Dean asked on his way to the coffeepot on the stove. Dad grunted in reply as Dean poured himself some of the sludge that called itself coffee in the Winchester household.

The folding chair squeaked on the peeling linoleum when he pulled it out from underneath the table. He sprawled in the hard seat and gulped down nearly half of the still-scorching tar in his mug. Damn, that felt good. Its heat didn't quite dampen the chill deep in his bones, but it was a start.

"How'd it go today?"

Dean didn't have to look to know that Dad's eyes were watching him, weighing and measuring in that way that only John Winchester could. He'd like to ask Dad the same question but that wasn't an option now. He'd have to rely on the tried-and-true method of wait and watch and hope like hell he was enough to take care of any problems that might come their way.

"Not bad." Dean smirked. "I got Lisa Silva into the janitor's closet during fourth hour. The things that chick can do with her tongue." He whistled low in appreciation. Dad's only response was a long, steady, implacable stare. So, it'd been one of those days. No joking around just straight to the debrief.

Dean sat up ramrod straight and met that stare head on. "Everything was status quo during school hours. The Dewar girl was there the entire time, and Sammy kept an eye on her in the library after school while I talked to all the drama dorks. None of them had much to report. No, they didn't notice her acting weird in the past few weeks. No, none of them know her very well, but they think she's nice. They all suggested I talk to this Lauren Deyonke kid who's apparently her bestest friend in the whole wide world." Dean couldn't help rolling his eyes. Seriously, what was up with chicks and that, 'best friends forever' crap. "I wasn't able to catch her today but I'll pin her down first thing tomorrow and see what she has to say."

Dad grunted and stared down into his mug. His eyes flickered from there to the clippings pinned haphazardly to the wall, and Dean knew that he was slotting this information in with whatever it was that he'd gleaned on his own today. Dean was almost ready to ask Dad about his day, to be clued in — if only a little — about what was going on in his head when Dad beat him to the punch.

"How'd it go for Sammy?" Dad's tone was the same, but Dean could hear all the things Dad wasn't saying about protection and exasperation and a love so deep it scared him.

Sam exploded into the kitchen. For a kid who took up so much space, he could lurk like nobody's business. He banged open cupboard and refrigerator with angry, precise movements, obviously in search of sustenance to feed his Hulk-like rage.

"It's going fine for Sammy," he prissed over his shoulder, hands busy unscrewing the peanut butter jar and then jamming a plastic spoon into its half-empty depths. "What did Dean tell you?" he asked, mouth half-full of gooey slime.

Dad took a deep breath but didn't look back at his youngest, wouldn't engage with whatever mood Sam was indulging in now. "What should Dean have told me?"

"Nothing," Sam replied quickly, too quickly, eyes darting from Dean to Dad in a delayed attempt to measure the situation. "Nothing happened. She sat there reading her book until her sister showed up." Sam frowned. "Anyway, I think you're wrong about her. I don't think she had anything to do with her dad's death." Dean could see straight through Sam's subject-change strategy; hell, he was the one who'd taught it to him, and it was a sure thing that Dad knew what he was doing, too. After all, all of Dean's best tricks came straight from him.

"Really." Dad could make one word pretty freaking intimidating. That and the way he turned around and caught Sam in that stare of his, and it was no wonder that Sam gulped down his peanut butter and stood up straight, all of the attitude knocked right out of him.

"It's-" Sam swallowed. "I talked to her today and, yeah, she's a little crazy, but most people are after something like that. She just doesn't seem like the kind of person who'd do something like that. It doesn't feel right."

Dad stared at Sam, and Sam met him head on, stubborn will flashing against stubborn will. All Dean could do was sit there and stare, mug going cold in his hands. Sam's opinions weren't new — he'd made those abundantly clear starting on the day he'd spit up pureed squash all over everything and he hadn't stopped expressing them since — but this bull-headed refusal to back down was fresh and exciting.

"Sammy's feelings aside, we proceed as planned," Dad ordered. Dean knew that Dad was talking to him even if his eyes never left Sam's. "You find out as much as you can about that Dewar girl. Her story doesn't match with what I picked up at the scene and I want to know why." Dad smiled at Sam, but there wasn't anything particularly nice about it. "That is, as long as Sammy can keep his feelings under control."

Sam's eyes narrowed and he opened his mouth but nothing came out. With a huff he stalked out of the kitchen and a second later the TV blared loud from the other room. Dad turned back to the clippings on the wall, all of his attention focused on the case at hand.

Dean abandoned his mug and slipped away from the table. The lights were on in the main room, and it was nominally warmer than the kitchen. The Warner Brothers and their Sister Dot were running around on the screen, mischievous cartoon smiles on their weird faces. Dean plopped down next to Sam with a grunt, but Sam ignored him, attention firmly fixed on a point on the wall above the TV.

"You're not gonna tell Dad about that thing in the library, are you?" Sam asked quietly.

Dean elbowed him in the side. "I'm no stool pigeon."

Sam nodded and passed him the jar of peanut butter. Dean stuck his finger in and ignored Sam's disgust with a grin.

* * *

_September 13, 2007_

_Hart, MI_

Sam staggered into their terminally quaint room at the 'Hart of the Forest' motel. It felt like he was being smothered in a blanket of autumn leaves too garish to ever exist on a real tree. He dropped the weapons duffle on the dark orange comforter on the bed furthest from the door and let his other bag follow suit. He stretched up, cracking his back with a satisfied grunt.

Dean was two steps behind him and he kicked the door closed with a slam. He tossed his own bag on the other bed and, without a word or a glance in Sam's direction, stalked into the bathroom. He slammed that door too, for good measure.

Sam grimaced and started weeding through his bag for the three books he'd cajoled Bobby into loaning him the last time they passed through. At least the trip from Petoskey to Hart hadn't been that long. They could fake civility pretty well, most of the time, but on the road all of their pretenses cracked and everything came spilling out. After all the time they'd spent in that damn car in their lives you'd think they would've figured out how not to bite each other's heads off during a long trip. They'd both been well-conditioned by the fear of John Winchester's strong right hand reaching out to smack the loudest offender but Dad was gone now and Dean was a stubborn idiot. No amount of careful foresight was enough to avoid the new pitfalls strewn throughout the ever-treacherous Winchester Emotional Minefield.

There were a million things he wanted to tell his brother about life and love and hope, but everything got mixed-up and twisted by the rage and frustration that never stopped burning in the pit of his stomach. Sometimes it felt like they were falling backwards into the people they'd been years ago with Dean pretending to be Dad and Sam trying to poke as many holes in that bullshit facade as he possibly could.

Thank God they had a job to work. It was funny how hunting was the one thing they could still do together.

Dean stepped out of the bathroom just as Sam was opening his laptop, books and paper spread out around him in organized chaos on the cheap particle-board desk in the far corner of the room.

"I'm going out for a bit," Dean glibly announced. He shrugged back into his leather jacket, face and neck still shiny and flushed from the fierce scrubbing he must have given them.

"Really? It's not even five o'clock yet." Sam tried hard for reasonable, but he was pretty sure the tone he'd actually achieved was closer to 'petulant little brother' than anything else, especially if the look on Dean's face was anything to go by.

Dean shrugged, the unspoken, 'So?' implicit in the gesture. "Don't get your panties in a twist. Thought I'd take a look around, get a feel for the area before we dive into things."

Sam sighed. "Just, leave me the car. And try not to pick up any infections." He'd been stuck in enough crappy motels in the past month. It was Dean's turn to hoof it around town.

"Sure thing, Sammy." Dean smirked and tossed him the keys in one fluid gesture. "Don't wait up," he added unnecessarily before the door blew shut behind him.

Sam sighed again and rubbed viciously at the pain that was building behind his temples. Saving Dean from himself never got any easier.

* * *

Angela pulled off of the highway onto the dirt road that lead to her sister's house as twilight was deepening into night. Every time she came here it felt strangely like the forest was swallowing her up, that it would never let her go.

She turned the radio down and squinted through the gloom. She twitched when a flash of light sparked off to her right but didn't turn to look. The first time she'd come here she'd almost driven into a ditch when a rabbit had startled in her peripheral vision. It was even worse at night, the wooded shadows making everything a surrealistic dream.

Gillian's bungalow was dark and quiet. The headlights ghosted over it as Angela pulled up, the high beams pulling out colors in the paint that never appeared in daylight. She shut the car off and plunged the yard back into darkness. The creak of the cooling engine was echoed by the groaning of tree branches tossed in the evening breeze. They loomed over the house communicating their dark disdain for its ordered imposition.

Before her over-active imagination could do its worst she levered herself out of the car and slammed the door, refusing to notice the way the sharp clap splintered between the trees. In a few long strides she was up the creaking porch and through the door that Gillian never locked.

She called her sister's name as she pushed the door closed and locked the deadbolt in a gesture born of equal parts habit and nerves. Her only reply was the muffled, stuffy silence of an empty house. She flipped on the thin yellow overhead light and gasped.

Everything was a mess. The front room was covered in papers and empty pop cans. There were paper plates full of old, dried-out food stacked by the far corner of the couch, and two overflowing baskets of laundry had spilled their contents all over the niche behind the half ladder/half staircase that sketched a path to the space under the eaves that Gillian used as her bedroom. The sheer fact that there wasn't a bra dangling from a lamp was the only thing that convinced her that she hadn't wandered into some MSU fraternity house by mistake.

She picked her way across the bomb crater, praying with every tentative step that some rodent wouldn't come scurrying out of the destruction.

"Gillian," she called again but with less hope of reply. Her sister wasn't the neatest person in the world, but she'd never let things get this out of control before.

She clicked on the kitchen light only to be bombarded by more of the same. Dirty pots filled the sink, and crumbs and caked-on food were sprayed across the stove top. The paper avalanche spared the appliances but the table at the other end of the rectangular room hadn't been quite so lucky. She collapsed into one of the mismatched chairs, the only empty seat she'd seen. She idly flipped through a few sheets, computer printouts and speckled photocopies with print too small for her road-weary eyes to decipher.

Her elbow knocked a heavy tome off of its precarious perch, and it fell with a muffled thump onto the sticky linoleum. It uncovered some kind of map checkered with names and dates and esoteric symbols that must have meant something to Gillian but wouldn't give up their secrets to the uninitiated.

She rested her forehead on her hands and breathed. It was all too much. She'd spent the car ride up here convincing herself that she was worried over nothing, that Gillian was fine and only escaping into the uncommunicative neurotic that she could sometimes be. But somehow she'd known that her sister wouldn't be here when she drove up.

She'd finally been left behind.

Angela picked herself up and stumbled towards the staircase and Gillian's miraculously uncluttered bed. She couldn't deal with any of this right now. She'd been running on adrenaline and fear for what felt like days and she had nothing left. It was all gone.

She left the bedroom light on. She wasn't ready to face what was hiding in the dark.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

_November 22, 1996_

_First United Methodist Church_

_Lansing, MI_

The cacophony of dozens of conversations echoed around the draughty community room in the church's basement. It was a utilitarian room, cinder block walls painted a muted yellow to match the beige and cream speckled linoleum on the floor. Large floor to ceiling windows lined one wall where the hill had been cut away, allowing the good churchgoers a vista of the outside world.

It wasn't much of a view on a gray November Wednesday, however. The sun had peeked out briefly during the graveside service but had promptly run away again before they'd returned for the reception.

Gillian poked at the food piled high on the plate in front of her. Grandma Dewar had plopped it down with a firm look that clearly communicated that Gillian was expected to clear the entire thing or face stiff consequences. Her grandmother was a formidable woman whose will was law, especially at her only son's funeral.

"Hey there, kiddo," Her Uncle Dave sat down in the folding chair to her right. He, too, had a plate brimming with food. "Your aunt sent me over. She said you looked lonely."

Gillian couldn't help rolling her eyes. Aunt Paula really was her mother's daughter.

"Yeah, I know," Uncle Dave grinned. "Like you need someone looking over your shoulder."

They sat for a moment in comfortable silence, both picking at their own monstrous piles of victuals. That was the good thing about Uncle Dave, he didn't push. He just let things be.

"How's your sister?" He asked quietly.

Gillian glanced over at the table where Angie was surrounded by her friends. Someone said something that made Angie smile. It didn't have the full-on Angie Effect that looked like it had come straight out of a Crest commercial, but it was something, at least.

She turned back to her uncle. "She's doing okay, I guess."

He nodded. "You know, if you or Angie ever need anything, me and your aunt are here for you."

"I know, Uncle Dave." She whispered into her potatoes. She blinked and willed her eyes to remain dry. She was so tired of crying.

He gripped her shoulder. "Good. I'm glad." A high-pitched wailing suddenly arced over the background clatter. Dave sighed. "Looks like Jackie's decided to join the party after all. I should go take care of her."

Gillian nodded and didn't watch as Dave walked away. She stared blankly at the towering mounds of Mrs. Flegal's pasta salad. It had always been her favorite part of any church social but she couldn't even imagine taking a bite of it today. She didn't want to ruin it.

The chair across from her creaked shrilly under someone's weight. She didn't look up. There wasn't anyone that she wanted to see right now.

"I'm sorry for your loss, Miss Dewar." The stranger's voice was deep, it rumbled through the air between them. Gillian's head shot up, startled out of despondency. She'd never seen the man on the other side of the table before in her life, she would've remembered him. He was large, he dwarfed the cheap fold-out chair. His shoulders slouched under his suit jacket but were still broad enough to seem like they spanned half the table. It was his eyes that caught her, though, dark and piercing. She didn't like them, couldn't stand the way they weighed on her, but she couldn't look away, they wouldn't let her.

"Thank you," she replied, her voice hardly a whisper.

He reached into his jacket and pulled out a badge. "I'm Detective Thompson, I have a couple of questions about your father's attack."

Her mind went completely blank. She gulped and felt the acid burn of bile in the back of her throat. She didn't want to think about that. She wasn't going to think about that.

He nodded as if her reaction confirmed something he already suspected and continued without batting an eye. "Our records show that you were present on the scene when the-" he pulled a narrow notebook out of his jacket and flipped it open, " –large black dog mauled your father."

She nodded, throat too dry to make a sound.

"Strange how the autopsy disagrees. Your father was mauled by a large animal, no question, but it wasn't a dog that did it. In fact, there isn't an animal in a thousand miles that would leave bites like the ones found on your father's corpse," The detective leaned forward. "What did you really see out there, Miss Dewar?"

Gillian couldn't move. His looming presence smothered her, made it hard for her to even breathe. Images flashed unbidden through her mind, an impossibly large shape hunched in dead, brown leaves. White razor teeth flashed and she ran, ran through mud and water, her father's screams echoing through the skeletal trees.

Her head spun and her blood thinned. Her breath came in short bursts, she didn't if she was going to throw up or pass out.

Thompson leaned even closer. She couldn't escape. "But you already know all of that, don't you Miss Dewar? You already know what killed your father while you stood there and watched. Did you do to call it? Did you hate your father that much?" His eyes bored into her, judge, jury, and executioner.

An electric surge of anger shot out of her chest, straightening her spine. It burned away the memories that haunted her and unlocked her tongue. "I love my father more than you could possibly even imagine. I didn't do anything, I would never hurt him, not in a million years." She could feel the tears welling in her eyes but she wouldn't let them fall, wouldn't give him the satisfaction. "I don't care what you think or what your evidence looks like. You can just take it all and-"

She stopped abruptly, mouth snapping shut. She wouldn't say any of the vile things that were slamming against her throat. She didn't say things like that. She refused to give in.

His eyes narrowed. She could see his temper build, held in check by the stiff clench of his jaw. He took a deep breath and she watched as he visibly reined himself in. His eyes gleamed, suddenly, and her teeth clicked together in response. She tensed for the next volley.

"Maybe it wasn't your fault," he growled low, syllables tripping over a depth she couldn't parse and didn't care to explore. "Maybe it was a joke. You never thought anything would happen. It's not your fault, you didn't know what you were doing." He smiled at her, but there was nothing kind in it. "But none of that matters, you still did it."

She stared at him. She didn't blink. "You're wrong. I didn't do anything." She raised her chin and didn't break eye contact, her jaw shut tight.

He returned her stare, his dark eyes gleamed with something feral she couldn't understand, but she didn't look away. He stood, unfolding until he towered over her. "I think that does it," voice laced with sarcasm that cut for blood. "Don't worry, Gillian, you won't have to keep your secret for much longer." He smiled suddenly, charm layered over the menace he meant for her to see. He turned and stalked from the room.

Gillian gazed after him and breathed. She hadn't done anything, even when Dad screamed. She'd only run away.

* * *

_Waverly High School_

"I don't know what you mean," the girl's, Lauren's, mouth pursed in confusion. Dean stopped himself from sighing in exasperation, instead he strengthened the rictus of a smile on his face. Patient, he had to be patient. He wasn't going to get anything from her if he lost it now. Dad would have his balls in a blender if he let whatever info she had slip away from him.

"You know Gillian better than anyone, that's what everybody says, so was she acting weird before her dad died? You know, was she reading strange books, obsessed with funny rituals, anything like that?" Dean turned the charm up to overdrive. It had gotten him into more cheerleaders' panties than he could count and it was more than a little frustrating how immune this chick seemed to be. She should've been wrapped around his little finger by now.

Lauren blushed and shifted uncomfortably. "No, of course not. I mean, yeah, she's not acting normal now, but her dad died, so if she doesn't talk to me and doesn't want me going to her dad's funeral then that's fine. It's totally okay." Her eyes couldn't seem to stay still while she talked, they would meet his for a second and then dart away again, haphazardly skipping around the empty hallway.

He leaned in a little. It was time to press his advantage. She blinked at him for a moment, eyebrows pulled together, before her focus darted away again. Her fingers whooshed nervously over the nylon strap of her backpack. "Are you sure about that?" Dean asked. "Cause I talked to a guy, Mike, in her English class who wouldn't stop talking about the way she just rattled off whole paragraphs in Latin in some play they were reading. That doesn't sound too run-of-the-mill to me."

"Oh," Lauren grinned suddenly. "That's not too weird. Our freshman year we sang a whole mass in Latin. Once you learn the sounds everything makes it's not that hard to pronounce." She shrugged a little awkwardly. "Gillian told me about reading i_Faustus_/i, she was just showing off."

Dean frowned for a second, taken aback. What kind of crazy choir teacher taught people Latin? Didn't they know how dangerous it was? With his luck some idiot kid was going to inadvertently summon a demon and then it'd be Dean Winchester who had to pull all their fat out of the fryer.

But he didn't have time to worry about that. Dad always said their first priority was to focus on the case at hand. "So there's nothing you can think of? Everything's just been same old, same old with good ol' Gillian."

Lauren grimaced, her eyes shifting from one side to the other. Oh yeah, she knew something. Dean moved in to press his advantage. "It's okay, you know. My dad's a cop and any little thing could help him figure out what happened to her dad. We're only trying to help her."

"It's, just-" Lauren swallowed and glanced around the empty hallway. She flinched when a cheer erupted from the gym at the far end of the hall but then she looked back at him, her jaw set. Yeap, there it was, she was going to spill her guts. He so rocked. "I called her on Monday night. I don't remember why, I didn't know anything about her dad. She picked up the phone and at first she sounded really tired and kind of distant but suddenly she started wheezing. It was kind of like crying but I've never heard anything as awful as the noises she was making. Then she started babbling about a monster in the woods and that it was all her fault and she should've done something but she didn't. I kept on asking her what was wrong but it was like she couldn't even hear me. And then the line went dead. When I tried to call back all I got was a busy signal."

Lauren's eyes welled up and she had to take a second to blink the tears away. "We watched the 11 o'clock news that night and found out about how her dad was mauled in the woods. I felt awful and I didn't expect to see her at school the next day, but she was right there in second hour, sitting in her spot in the soprano section. I tried to talk to her after class but she wouldn't say anything, just that she was okay and that she had to get to sociology. She's hardly talked to me since."

Another cheer erupted from the gym and Lauren jumped. Her eyes darted to the closed double doors to her left. "I have to go. Mrs. Sauter will be really upset if I miss too much rehearsal." Before Dean could say anything, she'd scooped up her bag and grabbed the doorknob.

She turned back, her eyes bright. "You'll really be able to help her?"

"Yes we will." He didn't have to doctor that up at all because it was true. There wasn't anything he and his family couldn't fix.

"Thank you," she whispered and slipped into the choir room.

The heavy door slammed shut. "You catch all that?" Dean asked, already turning towards the art room, its door angled open just right to catch the entire conversation.

"Yeah." Sam slumped into the hallway, backpack haphazardly draped over one shoulder.

"So that confirms Dad's theory," Dean declared. "If the Dewar chick said it was her fault then she must've had something to do with it."

Sam grimaced and shook his head. He didn't say anything, though, just got that look that he always had when his freakish super-brain was putting things together. Dean shrugged and started towards the parking lot, Sam'd let him have it once he had all his ducks in a row.

The thunk of their boots moving in tandem echoed off the linoleum floors and cinderblock walls. Sam finally broke his silence just as Dean was pushing the outside door open. "It doesn't seem the same. Remember when those kids summoned that hellhound down in Ohio? They didn't act the same. Also there was all that stuff about how they'd been learning about medieval iconography in art class, and how at least three of them confessed the whole thing to the police officer who caught them screwing around in the park. This is just different."

Dean shook his head. It was freakish how Sam could pull phrases like, 'medieval iconography' out of thin air. "You always get so worked up over the details, dude. Everybody's different. I hate to break it to you, but some people are fucked-up enough to kill their parents in cold-blood. It sucks but it's true."

"I know that, Dean," Sam bitched. "But you know what? I was the one who was stuck stalking her for days, and sometimes she looked just like you do when I ask you about Mom. I don't think she's the problem."

Dean stood for a moment with his hand on the side of the truck as Sam stomped to the other side. He took a few deep breaths in some kind of attempt to get himself under control. He hated when Sam brought Mom up like this, hated remembering even for a second what losing her felt like.

He pulled the door open and swung in. "That might be, but that doesn't mean she didn't do something stupid without meaning to," he said before Sam could open his mouth.

"Yeah, I know." Sam shrugged. He looked right at Dean, eyes big and sincere. "But we could still go by the state library, couldn't we?"

"Okay, fine, whatever," Dean grumbled. No matter what he did, he always seemed to end up stuck in the library. He swung the truck back out of its parking place. "But we're totally stopping by QD on the way for some doughnuts."

He took the nearly obscene growling from Sam's stomach as all the agreement he needed.

* * *

_September 14, 2007_

_Hart, MI_

"Was there anything strange about Danny's behavior before he went missing? Was he moody or complaining more than usual?" Sam leaned forward and turned the sympathetic charm up another notch. He used to have latent qualms about manipulating people like this, lying to them and offering them false hope just for some case. Maybe he'd hated it so much because it was so easy to look them in the eye and open them up. It didn't feel right to lie to people in the name of finding the truth.

Whatever the reasons, it didn't bother him anymore. They needed answers, and the more desperate people were the easier it was to connive all of their deepest secrets.

And the Owens were truly desperate. Their little boy had been gone for days, and they knew that their chances of getting him back decreased exponentially with every passing hour. Sam could practically see the string they were dangling on and knew that they were willing to cling to whatever slim hope he might give them.

"I've been over and over the days before, and I can't think of anything," Danny's mother, Cara, replied in a voice that sounded raspy and thin. "School just started again a couple weeks ago but he only had good things to say about his teacher and his friends. He was happy." Her bloodshot eyes bored into his, pleading with him to believe her.

Sam saw Matt's mouth open and close in reaction to his wife's statement. That combined with the way his eyes hesitantly cut to Cara's face before resting on Sam, again, declared that he definitely knew something his wife didn't.

Dean caught it, too. "There anything you want to add, Mr. Owen?" Dean's voice was heavy and deep with more than a hint of their dad in it. Sam wasn't surprised to see Matt sit up straight, his eyes suddenly unable to leave Dean's. It took years to build up a resistance to that tone, and even then it could still get you.

"He woke me up the night before," spilled out of Matt's mouth. He cleared his throat and took a steadying breath before continuing. "I mean, I woke up, it must have been somewhere around two in the morning, and Danny was standing by the bed. He was scared, so scared that he was shaking like a leaf. He told me that the trees were singing, that they wanted him to go outside." He shrugged, his face bleak. "I thought it was just a nightmare. I calmed him down and put him back to bed. He seemed fine the next morning."

He stared out the window situated behind Sam and Dean's heads, not willing to meet anyone's eyes. It had been a long time since Sam had felt surprise over the ability so many people had to deny what they knew was true, to excuse and logic their fears away, and he was running short on pity these days. Sympathy wasn't going to get the job done and denial only fucked everything up.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Cara whispered, stricken. Her eyes bored into Matt's cheek until he broke with a half sob and turned to look at her.

"It was just a dream," he pleaded. Sam wasn't sure even Matt knew who he was trying to convince.

"Does anyone else know about Danny's dream?" Sam gently cut through the silent tension that was growing between husband and wife.

"No," Matt knee-jerked. Then he blinked. "I mean, yes, maybe, I don't know." He sighed and shot a quick look at Cara out of the corner of his eyes. "I don't know if Danny told anyone, but I might have mentioned it to Gillian, our neighbor down the road."

"You told _her_?" Cara's voice broke on the last word with anger and accusation.

Matt held his hands up, in either supplication or defense. "It was right after Danny disappeared. She was asking all of these questions and it just, kind of, came out." He collapsed under whatever he saw in her gaze, his shoulders hunched and his head bowed.

Sam glanced at Dean and nodded at Dean's raised eyebrow. This was definitely something.

"We're going to have to talk to this Gillian," Dean demanded, flipping open his notebook. "You said she's your neighbor?"

"Yes," Cara answered mechanically, her eyes still focused on Matt. "She lives in the cabin south of here, about a mile down. The mailbox says Van Doren."

"Okay," Dean drawled, jotting it down. He glanced at Sam, a silent _awkward_ in the set of his mouth.

"Thank you for your help," Sam said, rising. "We'll do everything we can to find your son."

Cara didn't say anything as she showed them to the door. Sam let out a sigh when the door closed behind them, shutting them out of the storm that was building on its other side.

"Well, that sorry bastard's sure gonna get it," Dean quipped as they strode toward the car. "Wonder what about this Gillian chick put such a bee in wifey's bonnet."

Sam shrugged as he pulled open his door. The Owens' marital problems really weren't his concern.

He hissed when he slid into the car. It was like an oven in there. He started rolling down the window before he could even contemplate closing the door. An entire forest of trees and the Owens' driveway was still open to the sun.

Dean dropped behind the wheel and smirked at Sam. He'd already thrown his suit coat into the backseat and unbuttoned the top button of his shirt. His cheap, polyester tie was still knotted loosely around his neck. "And don't tell me it's stress. That was way more than stress. I'd put good money on Matt being a very naughty little boy."

"Yeah, sure, whatever," Sam sighed. Dean could be worse than the stereotypical old biddy, sometimes, and it would only encourage him if Sam started conjecturing.

They shut their doors simultaneously and Dean started the car with a flick of his wrist. The air that rushed in the windows as they pulled down the road felt wonderful as it dried the sweat on the back of Sam's neck. It was just their luck to get stuck working a job during summer's last gasp, when what should've been comfortable working weather was actually obnoxious, hot, and humid enough to drown a man on dry land. Sam didn't know whether to attribute it to global warming, demons, or some infernal combination of them both.

It hardly took any time to find what they were looking for. Before he knew it they were turning down a rutted track guarded by a rusted old mailbox that may, at one point, have said Van Doren, but now only the letters V, D, and N were legible.

The drive curved and they followed it to a house that was hidden from the road by a dense line of trees. It looked like someone's neglected summer cottage; the dark green paint was chipped and worn, and last year's leaves still clogged the gutters. A dusty red Grand Am stood by the door, a stylized green 'S' sticker tacked onto the rear window its only identifying feature.

Sam unbuttoned and rolled up his sleeves as he got out of the car, leaving his own suit coat behind. It was shady under the trees, though stuffy. He could hear the branches rustling overhead but none of the breeze made it down to their level. It was strangely still in their pocket of the woods, almost like the trees were holding their breath.

Sam shook his head in an attempt to throw off the sudden, clawing sensation of claustrophobia.

Dean knocked demandingly on the front door. He glanced around while they waited, the fingers of his left hand pounding out some private rhythm against the side of his leg. His eyes surveyed the still, curtained windows, narrowing slightly when he couldn't get a glimpse of what was inside. Sam felt hyperaware, every nerve on overdrive.

Dean knocked again, this time with even more force. He grumbled under his breath and frowned. Before he even looked over Sam was already squatting down, lock picks nimbly balanced between his fingers.

It wasn't like they'd ever let closed doors stop them in the past.

* * *

Angela jerked out of sleep. She went from comatose to wide awake in under a second. Her eyes darted around the room, she'd been dreaming about something that she could almost see, a dark forest and the trees had eyes. It was a dream, just a dream.

She sat up and ran her hands through her hair. She grimaced when her elbow impacted with the corner of a book lodged between mattress and bed. It wasn't surprising that she hadn't seen it last night, the shock of finding the house empty combined with miles of road and days of worry had done her in. She'd faceplanted into the pillows and immediately dropped into exhausted oblivion.

It was almost peaceful, up there in Gillian's room. Sunlight streamed through a small, square window set underneath the peak of the roof. Through it she could see green leaves swaying in the wind, and blue sky behind them. If she closed her eyes she could almost forget why she was up here, at all.

Angela's mouth thinned and she swung her legs off of the bed. She didn't have time to waste on fantasies. Her sister was still missing and sitting in bed, feeling sorry for herself wasn't going to accomplish anything. All of that stuff downstairs might be a mess, but it was somewhere to start. At the very least they might give her some insight about what could go on in Gillian's screwed up head.

A thump and a muffled curse from downstairs shocked every thought out of her mind. Her heart sped up and a shot of adrenaline pushed her onto her feet. It was just so typical that Gillian would show up after Angela'd gone through so much. She was going to kill her sister for putting her through this, again.

She froze halfway to the stairs when a deep voice spoke and another, equally as sonorous, answered. Her heart beat in her throat. It wasn't like Gillian to be quiet.

She ducked down on the right side of the stair-hole. The room downstairs was dim, a mélange of shadow. She couldn't see the intruders but she could hear their heavy footsteps picking over the junk on the floor. She drew in a quick breath when they began to speak.

"What the hell is all of this?" one of them griped. Angela was just coherent enough to identify it as the voice that had cursed earlier.

There was a grunt, followed by the rustling of paper.

"It looks like notes and printouts." The sound of shuffling could be heard underneath the words. "There's info about weather patterns, local history." This was punctuated by a sharp breath. "Dean, I think she's a hunter."

Angela's head reeled with confusion. She frowned and stood up. That was it, she deserved answers and she was getting them now.

She banged down the ladder-like steps, for once not afraid of falling off of them. All of her fear had been replaced by a rage that burned like acid in her chest.

She ducked to avoid banging her head on the ceiling and when she looked up she was face to face with the interlopers. They were huge, the tallest's head nearly grazed the ceiling, and solid. Their shoulders were rigid under white shirts and their faces were still and intense, frighteningly so.

Angela knew she should be scared, but when it came to her family some indomitable part of her always took over. In the face of that, nothing else registered.

"Who are you?" she demanded. "What are you doing here? What do you know about my sister?"

"Your sister?" the shorter one repeated, his eyebrows drawn together in consternation.

"Yes, my sister. The woman whose house you just broke into."

"I'm sorry, ma'am," the taller one pulled out and flashed a badge. "I'm Agent Green and this is Agent Benson. We came by to ask your sister some questions." He exchanged an impenetrable look with his companion. "Maybe you can help us."

"Most FBI agents don't break into people's homes," Angela retorted.

Green gestured towards the door with his right hand, the papers she'd heard him pick up still gripped between his fingers. "The door wasn't latched. When we saw the mess we thought something might be wrong."

Angela frowned. She knew that tone, it was the same one she used with her clients at the shelter. It was supposed to reassure her, make her trust him. Instead it set her teeth on edge. Something still didn't add up.

"Is Gillian here?" The other one, Benson, asked before she could voice her suspicions.

"No, she isn't," Angela replied, an automatic reaction to his brusque, authoritarian tone. She mentally kicked herself for giving anything away. She knew this routine and she still fell for it.

"Can you tell us what she was doing?" Green asked softly, his eyes gentle and warm on hers, playing his side of the act to perfection.

She looked back and forth between them, her mouth set in a thin, flat line. She didn't trust them, didn't even trust that they were the FBI agents they claimed to be. But all of her doubts weren't worth a thing if there was the slightest possibility that they might be able to help her.

Damn it, what was Gillian mixed up in this time?

She sighed and deflated. "I don't know where she is. I got up here last night and found the place like this." Her hand twitched around the disaster area of a room. "She hasn't answered her phone in nearly a week. If you know anything, please help me." She wasn't above begging to get her family what it needed.

The agents carried on an entire conversation in a series of facial movements. A part of Angela's mind, the psychologist she couldn't switch off, even if she wanted to, jotted down notes regarding the depth and intricacy of their interaction for future reference.

Benson was the one who finally answered. "We're investigating a series of disappearances in the area. We have reason to believe you sister was involved with them. Do you have any idea what she was working on?"

Angela couldn't help the strangled, desperate laugh that burst out of her. "Gillian never tells me anything about what she does. I know she has a job at the IGA in town, but she never even hints about her real work."

The agents shared another loaded look. They knew something about her sister that she didn't, she could tell.

That was it, she was done playing their game. "Look," she seethed. "If you know anything about my sister you tell me-"

"Is that a phone?" Green interrupted, his head jerking up like a dog scenting the wind.

A dull trilling that Angela had noticed but hadn't recognized came into sharp focus. A dull trilling that Angela had noticed but hadn't recognized came into sharp focus.A dull trilling that Angela had noticed but hadn't recognized came into sharp focus. She jumped and ran across the room, heedless of the things that crunched and snapped under her feet.

She shoved a pile of paper off of a side table and uncovered the phone and its ancient answering machine counterpart. She got to it just as the answering machine was beeping on.

"Hey Jilly, it's Andy," a tinny voice jittered out of the speaker. "One of those guys you were asking about, Hector Garces, just turned up. His family wanted me to make sure that you knew he was back. And let me know if we're still on for Saturday night. I'm really looking forward to it. Kay, bye."

Angela was halfway to the door, keys in hand, by the time the machine beeped off.

"Hey," Benson half-shouted, grabbing her elbow. "Where are you going?"

She shook him off and glared. "They know about Gillian. I have to go."

Benson stared at her grimly for a long moment and then nodded. "Sam," he ordered over his shoulder. "You stay here and try to make heads or tails of this mess. Come on," he said to Angela and together they strode out the door.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

_November 22, 1996_

_Lansing, MI_

It was dark outside. It had been dark for hours. The lamp by her bed was on, the one she'd had since she was a kid, but it didn't seem to make the room any brighter.

Gillian was trying to read but she could hear them talking downstairs. What no one ever seemed to realize was that the stairs made some sort of acoustic tunnel that echoed every conversation held on the main floor straight to her ears. She couldn't understand every word that Grandma Dewar and Aunt Paula said, but she heard more than enough to get the gist of their conversation. They were talking about Mom. They didn't think she could take care of herself, let alone her daughters.

They were planning everyone's lives as if they had any say in the matter.

She pulled the pillow over her head and burrowed deeper under the covers. She didn't want to hear anymore. She didn't want to think. She wanted everything to go away.

The door creaked, and Gillian peeked out to see who was there. Freddy trotted through the opening he'd made with his nose, his stumpy, long-haired body just fitting through the small crack. He sat down next to her bed and stared up at her, his dark eyes large and mournful. He knew something was wrong and he wanted to help.

Gillian didn't move. She lay on her bed and stared at him. He waited for her to make room for him to jump up, but she didn't. She knew that if she let him jump up he'd make her feel better. She'd bury her face in his side and he would lick her cheek and start to take all of the pain away. But she didn't want to feel better. He was the one who'd run away, who'd slipped out the back door in a blink and darted down to the woods. He was the reason why she and Dad had been down there. They'd gone to get him back and then Dad was dead. Freddy took them down there and now he was trying to act like nothing was wrong, that he hadn't done anything.

She surged up out of her prone position.

"I hate you! I hate you so much!" Gillian screamed into his stupid, loving face. "It's all your fault! Get out of here and leave me alone! Get!"

Freddy ran out of the room with a yelp. She leaped after him and slammed the door, sliding the lock shut with her other hand.

She turned and leaned her back against the door, its thin plywood shell bending under her weight. Her heart beat loud in her ears and her legs trembled. She slowly sank down, her shirt catching on invisible imperfections in the wood, until she was sitting on the floor.

She hadn't meant to yell like that. She loved Freddy, she always had, ever since Mom and Angie brought him home from the Humane Society when he was just a tiny little thing. He'd always been her puppy, more than anyone else's. It wasn't really his fault. She'd been the one who'd opened the door and looked away. He'd only done what he always did. He was her responsibility.

Tears dripped down her face, but she didn't remember when she'd started to cry. Maybe she'd never stopped. She pulled her legs up against her chest and sobbed into her knees. She was doing everything wrong and she knew it. Dad would be so disappointed in her. He'd want her to be strong and make everything better, but instead she was messing it all up. She couldn't do anything right.

She didn't know how long she stayed like that, huddled on the floor, buried in her grief. A soft knock that she felt more than heard brought her back to herself. She scrubbed at her face and shifted. Her lower back was stiff and her butt was numb.

"Are you okay?" she heard Angie cautiously ask from the other side of the door.

"Yeah." Gillian rubbed her faced again and stood up. "Just a second."

She unbolted the door and slowly pulled it open. Angie stood there, surprisingly small in a patterned flannel nightie. Her face was red and splotchy—she'd been crying, too—and Gillian hadn't been there for her.

Gillian stepped forward and wrapped her little sister in a hug. Angie grabbed her tight and took a deep, shuddering breath.

"Don't leave me too," Angie whispered against her neck.

"Never," Gillian fiercely vowed. She pulled back, but didn't let go of Angie's shoulders. "I'm going to make everything all right. I promise."

Angie gripped her arms like a vice, hard enough to leave bruises. "Just don't leave me." Her eyes bored into Gillian with more sorrow and fear than Gillian had ever wanted to see in her. Gillian stood there and didn't blink, she took it all in and hoped she'd be enough to carry all of this for both of them.

Angie's shoulders slumped and she let go of Gillian. She seemed to grow even smaller. Gillian instinctively reached forward and smoothed down her long blonde hair like she had a million times in the past. Angie sighed softly and shivered.

"You should get some sleep," Gillian whispered in the best 'big sister' tone she had. "It's been a long day."

Angie nodded. She gave Gillian another long, searching look. She searched for something in Gillian's face, and Gillian stood still and let her find whatever she needed.

Angie finally nodded, seemingly content though a tear ran down her cheek. "Good night," she said as she threw her arms around Gillian for another hug.

"Sleep tight." This time Gillian didn't want to let go. She pulled her sister closer and squeezed her eyes shut. She knew what she had to do and it scared her. But she'd promised Angie she'd make it all better and she would.

"I love you," Angie sniffled.

"I love you too," Gillian said around a sob. She took a deep breath and swallowed it all down. She had work to do and crying would only get in the way.

Angie sniffled again and finally pulled away. She slipped down the stairs to her bedroom, and Gillian didn't follow her. Gillian waited until she heard Angie's door close before turning back into her own room. She closed and relocked her door and then sat down on her bed and started pulling on her shoes.

Everyone would be asleep soon, and then she could sneak out. She had to go back down to the woods, it was the only way.

She wasn't afraid anymore.

_State of Michigan Library_

Dean wanted to bang his head against the table. He should've known when he agreed to take Sam to the library that he'd spend the evening buried in newspaper. He didn't even have the comfort of a cup of coffee or a bag of chips to help him out. He'd risked Sammy's ire and taken a trip to the lunch room only to be stopped short by the librarian's icy stare when he'd tried to bring his spoils anywhere near the books.

He shivered and glanced over his shoulder. The librarian was glaring at him again. She'd obviously decided that she had to protect the books from him. He turned back to his latest stack of research and carefully folded Monday's _Dewitt-Bath Review_ back into shape. He knew from past experience that there was nothing more dangerous than a librarian on a rampage.

"Did you get it?" Sammy's eyes were bright and intense from across the table. "Was it there?"

Dean sighed. "Yes, there was an animal attack in St. Johns and no, there weren't any teenagers mentioned in the article. But that doesn't prove that it's not a hellhound. For all we know, hellhounds might look like were-wolverines."

"It's not a were-wolverine." Sam jabbed the book in front of him with his forefinger. "They're animals that were mistaken for wolverines by English settlers. But Jesuit explorers wrote about, 'ferocious beasts that stalked the northern woods,' with mouths full of teeth and spines instead of fur on their backs."

"Yeah, yeah, I got that the first time you showed it to me, but it's not like the all-knowing book's spit up a name for the damn thing." Dean rolled his eyes, Sam's tone was really starting to cheese him off. He might not be the Grand High Poobah of the Book Club, or whatever, but he wasn't an idiot. "And doesn't it also say that those, 'ferocious beasts' are only in the Upper Peninsula? How'd one of them end up on this side of the Straits?"

"Maybe it swam," Sam glowered. "It doesn't matter how it got here. And, anyway, you're the one who picked up on all of those animal attacks that started in Cheboygan and went south."

"Yes," Dean said slowly. "But a pattern isn't a monster." Dean threw up his hands in reaction to Sam's fierce look. "Hey, that's what Dad's gonna say."

Sam slammed the book shut with a dull thump and started shoving notebooks into his backpack. "It's this beast. I know it is. And Dad can just shove his hellhound idea." He pushed away from the table with a clatter. "I'll go down to that stupid park myself and prove that he's wrong."

Sam threw his bag over his shoulder and pounded out of the library. Dean scooped his own stuff up and hurried after him, the cold gaze of the librarian following them both. If Dean wasn't careful Sam would march all the way across the city to those woods and end up getting himself killed. Dad'd be super pissed if Dean let that happen.

"Dude, chill," Dean said after they'd made it back out to the truck and the heater was blasting. Damn it was cold. "I think you've got a decent take on this whole thing. Let's run it past Dad tonight and head down there tomorrow and scope out the territory." He glanced over at Sam's ramrod posture. "Okay?"

Sam just grunted in reply. Dean sighed again and pulled out of the parking lot. At least the brat hadn't jumped out of the damn truck.

They drove home in silence. The only noises Sam made were to ask for a Big Mac and a chocolate shake when they drove through the Mickey D's. The lights were on when they pulled up to the house. Sam let him take point when they went inside. Dean wasn't sure whether that meant he was intimidated or he was putting the finishing touches on some genius argument that would have them both running laps till Hell froze over.

Dad had one of the weapon duffels stowed on the kitchen table and a disassembled shotgun laid out in front of him.

"Good, you're back," he said the second the door slammed shut behind Sam. "There was another attack this afternoon. We're going down there tonight to take care of it." He clicked the barrel back onto the stock and held it out to Dean. "Make sure all of the guns are loaded."

Dean stepped forward and grabbed the shotgun. He immediately focused on the task at hand.

"I was right, it wasn't a hellhound." Sam's words crackled through the dim room.

Dean looked up, his eyes narrowed. Apparently Sammy needed his pound of flesh on top of everything else.

"Are you trying to say something, son?" Dad stood up slowly. His voice was quiet but it echoed off of the close walls.

Dean shifted and set the shotgun carefully on the table. He didn't know what was about to happen, but he wanted to be ready, just in case the shit finally hit the fan.

Sam's entire body was a live wire. He stood there and he didn't back down, his face frozen in an expression Dean had never seen before, some godawful combination of rage and loathing.

"Yeah, I have something to say. You wouldn't even listen to me when I told you that you were wrong, and now look at what happened!" Sam got louder and shriller with every sound he made. "Someone else had to die because you think you're so much smarter than everyone else that you won't even listen!"

Dad took another step forward. His fists were clenched and he had a look on his face that Dean had only ever seen him throw at the worst kind of scum. Enough was fucking enough.

Dean jumped between them. He put his back to Dad and faced Sammy. Sam was breathing fast, his face flushed and his eyes bright. "All right Sam, I think Dad's got the point. Why don't you help me load up the shotguns."

"No, he doesn't get it." Sam's breath was only getting shorter but he still wasn't backing down. "And why should I help him when he wouldn't listen to me?"

"That's all right," Dad said over Dean's shoulder, deceptively calm. "Sam wouldn't be much help out there; he'd only be a liability."

Sam's mouth narrowed at Dad's dismissal. "Well, I don't want to risk my life like an idiot, anyway," He snarled and threw his backpack across the room as he stomped out of the kitchen.

Dean immediately turned toward Dad, but he was already heading into the other room. "Finish loading up the guns. We leave in ten," Dad said over his shoulder.

A door at the other end of the house slammed, and Dean flinched. He felt like he'd just run a ruck march and, fuck, there was more yet to come. Before turning back to the weaponry on the table, he pulled a notebook out of Sam's discarded backpack. Having everything they could get on the damn monster probably wouldn't hurt.

Dean mechanically pulled another shotgun out of the duffel and went to work. Hunting down some people-chomping monster was exactly what he needed right about now.

_September 14, 2007_

_Hart, MI_

Angela pulled her car up to the Mexican grocery and threw it into park. She didn't even look at the guy sitting in the passenger's seat. She'd stopped caring about him or what he was doing around the time she'd won the who-was-driving contest by merely getting into her car and starting the engine, almost leaving without him. She had turned up the radio and ignored the dirty look he'd sent her way. She didn't have enough energy to worry about what he might be thinking.

He grabbed her arm just before she pushed the glass door open. Clear green eyes stared grimly into hers. "When we get in there, let me do the talking, Miss Van Doren."

She roughly pulled her arm away. "My name is Angela Dewar. Ms. Dewar," she emphasized with a very pointed look. "Getting my name right might make you look better in front of the locals." She went through the door without bothering to listen to his response.

It was cooler inside than out, but it was only a matter of degree. The store smelled like she remembered, like it did when Gillian first brought her here, an earthy mix of nearly overripe produce and raw meat. Members of the Garces family stood by the cash register at the back of the main room, roughly grouped together by the two sheriff's deputies flanking them.

One of the Garces women looked up from the intense family discussion and caught Angela's eye. "Angelita," she squawked, startled, and hurriedly closed the distance between them. "Where's Gillian?"

Angela blinked and took a deep breath. She knew Luisa, had spent more than one evening watching and—if she was honest with herself—hating the easy camaraderie that existed between the woman in front of her and her sister. But she didn't have time to indulge any of her own pettiness, not now.

"I don't know where she is. That's why I'm here. I heard the message on Gillian's machine and came right over." Angela was blunt and to the point. A disgust for pretty words and half-truths was one of the traits that both Gillian and Luisa shared.

Luisa looked over Angela's shoulder. Her mouth flattened and her eyes went hard. "Who's this with you?"

"I'm with the FBI," the agent said before Angela could respond. He stepped around Angela and positioned himself to her left. "My partner and I are investigating the disappearances."

"The FBI?" One of the deputies interrupted, his face screwed up in confusion. "We didn't call the Feds. Who did you say you were?"

"I didn't. I'm Agent Benson." He whipped out his badge and tucked it back away in one smooth, practiced motion. "But you can call me Dean," he said to Luisa in one of the smarmiest tones Angela had ever heard, and she'd been propositioned by more than one fratboy asshole at a kegger.

And it didn't take a psych major to interpret the grim fuck-off-and-die look that Luisa gave him in response.

"Great, wonderful, so glad that's out of the way." Angela rode right over the pissing match she could see brewing a mile away. She turned back to Luisa. "Do you know what happened to my sister?"

Luisa frowned. Her eyes darted from one face to another, weighing options Angela couldn't begin to decipher. Luisa's frown deepened when she reached some kind of decision.

"When cousin Hector disappeared we called Gillian. She's helped us with things like this in the past. Gillian said that she was already taking care of it and that we should call her if anything else happened. And then Hector reappeared." Her voice was carefully modulated, a sure sign that there was a plethora of things she wasn't saying.

"What does Hector have to say?" Dean asked seriously. His manner was entirely professional, as if the horndog had never existed.

"They won't let anyone talk to him," the deputy peevishly interrupted. "If a shopper hadn't called 911 when he staggered into the store we wouldn't even know he was back."

"I told you, Andy, you can't help us with this," Luisa said mechanically, dutifully playing her part.

"Can I talk to Hector?" Angela asked before the conversation could spiral into some other realm entirely. "I need to know what he knows about my sister," she continued in spite of Luisa's stony expression.

"Gillian didn't want you mixed up in her work," Luisa grimly replied.

"I don't care what Gillian wants. Hell, most of the time she doesn't even know what she really wants." She pushed between Luisa and Andy; her wire-thin patience had finally snapped. "Hector's in the back, right?"

She didn't wait for a response, just strode through the double doors that lead to the 'employee only' area. Somehow, she wasn't surprised when Dean caught the door before it closed behind her.

The hallway was dim, the only illumination the thin sunlight that beamed through blocky windows on the right-hand wall. It was silent except for the dull hum of spinning motors somewhere further in the back.

They found Hector in the employee's lounge. He was slumped in the couch on the far side of the room, a blanket pulled up to his shoulders. His face was pale and gaunt and his breathing was labored.

An older woman glared up at them as they entered. She set the mug and bowl in her hands carefully down on a table and then turned on them, hands planted firmly on her hips. She let loose a rush of words that Angela didn't have to recognize to understand that their presence was unwelcome.

Luisa hurried into the room, her hands up in a conciliatory manner. She became the object of the older woman's tirade and tried to placate her in the same language. The older woman eventually subsided, and her gaze went from hostile to intrigued.

The older woman addressed them and Luisa dutifully translated. "My grandmother says that you can't wake Hector up, but she'll tell you what he said before he collapsed." She and her grandmother shared a long look before the grandmother haltingly began.

"_Primo_ Hector said that the last thing he remembered before the forest was picking fruit for the Gleasons. Then music came out of the trees and he couldn't stop himself, it called to him and he followed. After that there was only music until he saw your sister's face and she told him to run and not look back. He did exactly that."

"That's what he said?" Angela whispered, her mind spinning in circles. Gillian had never told her about what she had seen when dad died, had never hinted at what kept her holed up in Uncle Dave's cabin year after year, but she wasn't as secretive as she thought she was. Angela had picked up clues here and there about the things that Gillian believed. Angela had never judged, had never wanted to face either possibility—that Gillian was crazy or that she was right. She'd turned a blind eye on all of the undercurrents and left Gillian on her own.

She left the room. She wasn't blind anymore and she was going to find her sister. The Gleason's orchard was only a couple miles north of Gillian's cabin and, by God, she'd search every inch of the area in between.

She nearly ran past the people in the store, their shocked and confused looks bouncing off of her without impact. She was nearly to her car when a firm hand on her shoulder stopped her headlong dash and spun her around.

"You're not going out there." Dean's tone was fierce and brooked no argument. "I know, I get it, she's your sister," he continued over her glare. "But you're not going to help her if you run out there half-cocked, you'll only end up getting yourself killed. We need to figure out what we're up against before we can save your sister."

"How are we going to do that? And why are you even involved?" She wanted to tell him to leave her the fuck alone, that she could handle it. She didn't need his help or his pity.

"This is our job and we're damn good at it. We'll find Gillian." He grinned, and there was something strangely reassuring in its cockiness. She reacted to his confidence and could feel her angry stubbornness begin to dissolve, the knots in her stomach and shoulders slowly loosen. She clutched at the hope that someone, anyone, could help her fix this.

His grin softened, the cockiness replaced by what looked like understanding "Let's go back to your sister's place and see what my brother's got."

She nodded silently and blinked back sudden tears. He squeezed her shoulder before turning to leave the store. Angela took a deep breath and stood up straight. Dry-eyed she followed Dean to the car.

* * *

Sam set the notebook down on the wobbly, paper-strewn table. He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands, and then stretched, his shoulders cracking in release. Digging through all of the research would be easier if it had some sort of organizational logic but it looked like its compiler, the missing Gillian, he presumed, came from the Bobby Singer School of Library Science. She obviously applied a similar 'throw it all in piles and heaven help the poor fool who tries to sort through it' cataloguing method. He'd finally dug something up that looked promising but interpreting the personal code of abbreviations, in at least three separate languages, was slow-going.

He turned to the left and found the fridge easily within reach in the tiny kitchen. He pulled the door open and grinned; thank god for the universal predictability of hunters everywhere. He grabbed a cold beer and twisted the cap off, randomly flicking it into the other room to join an already sizeable pile of its mates. He leaned back and let all of the information he'd deciphered collate itself in his mind.

The door crashed open just as he was bringing the bottle up for another sip and he just missed spilling it all over himself. Angela plowed through the front room and slammed into the bathroom.

Dean followed more slowly, his mouth thin and his eyebrows scrunched together, sure signs that he was worrying at some bit of stubborn information. Sam reached into the fridge and grabbed another beer. Dean silently accepted the bottle, but it didn't completely register with him—his gaze still stuck on something in the middle distance. His ring clinked rhythmically against the bottle's glass in time with his thoughts.

Suddenly Dean snorted and looked down at the bottle in his hand, a side of his mouth curved up in sardonic amusement. "Just like the scotch," he muttered to himself.

"What?" Sam responded, his voice laced with confusion and surprise.

"Remember back when we were kids and Dad worked that auto plant gig in Lansing?" Dean snapped off the beer cap and took a long, contemplative sip, his attention still focused on something inside his own head.

"Yes," Sam drawled, not quite sure where Dean was going with this but willing to play along. The pathways Dean's brain went down could be a little strange and obscure but they never failed to get the job done.

"Right before we left town that guy got mauled." Dean looked at Sam with a raised eyebrow like he expected Sam to already know what he was thinking.

"Yeah, the were-wolverine. And the guy's name was Dewar," he finished with a roll of his eyes. Equating a name with malt liquor was such a Dean way to remember things. "But what does that have to do with-" He stopped abruptly and his eyes widened when the neurons in his brain hooked everything together. "Holy shit," he breathed. So that's why Dean was so morose.

"Yeap, pretty much," Dean agreed.

They drank their beer in disbelieving silence. Sam stared at the piles of research on the table, seeing it with new eyes. He never would have connected the researcher to his vague memories of a mourning girl. It was surreal, weird in a way that he'd never experienced, notwithstanding a life that defined everyone else's 'weird' as its daily norm.

The floor creaked, knocking Sam out of his shocked introspection. Angela stood at the far end of the table, hands braced on the back of a wooden chair. Her face was severe and faint worry lines spidered from the corners of her mouth. Sam ransacked his memory for some hint of familiarity, but there was nothing. If he'd ever known her the memory was lost in everything he'd done since.

"You're not FBI agents," she said, her voice haggard. "And don't even try to tell me otherwise," she continued before either of them could argue the point.

"All right, we won't," Dean replied, his hands raised at his waist, fingers spread in what could have been either defense or conciliation. He glanced at Sam, his intentions clear on his face.

For all the crap Dean gave him when they were kids he always broke for the truth first.

"You're right, we're not FBI," Dean continued in his most sincere manner. "But that doesn't mean we can't help you find your sister. We help people with strange shit like this all of the time. Like I said, it's our job, whether we're official or not."

"Like Gillian," Angela whispered. Her eyes were fixed on her hands. They wrung the back of the chair with nervous energy.

"Yeah, kinda." Dean shrugged. He glanced at Sam again, uncomfortable and looking for an out.

Sam easily took his brother's non-verbal passing of the buck. He sat up straight, careful to not jostle the table, and gently set his beer bottle on the floor. It was showtime.

"So, luckily, Gillian had it pretty much worked out." He spread a map out on the table and drew a circle around a particular area. "This isn't the first time people have gone missing in that hunk of forest. Back in the 1900s at least three lumber companies reported strange disappearances. It got so bad that workers refused to cut that area. There were also reports of music in the woods, as if the trees were singing. Gillian also dug up Ojibwe legends from the area that referred to trees that would snatch you away."

"So, what are we dealing with, some sort of land-based siren?" Dean leaned over the map like it was his whole world.

Sam shook his head and pushed over a notebook already turned to the appropriate pate. "No, it seems more like the spirit of a place. The Alongonquin believed that the earth has presence or personality and that some areas can either attract or repel. Some were even imbued with an almost godlike mystique."

"Like that hotel in _The Shining_," Angela said, her eyes shining as she fell into the pulse of the investigation.

Sam blinked and grinned. "Sort of. More like Stonehenge or Mount Rushmore, places that attract monuments and crowds without any apparent reason."

"But why now? If it's always been like this then why did Gillian suddenly go into crazy research mode? Shouldn't she have been ready for it?" Angela eyed the stacks of books and scattered papers in consternation. At least that meant that Gillian didn't live this way all of the time.

"I don't know," Sam replied. "Maybe someone cut down one of the trees or performed a ceremony. Any number of things could have set it all off."

"So I guess torching it isn't going to get the job done," Dean cut in, a little frustrated. Sam knew how much Dean preferred the tried and true methods for ending a problem. "Can't really salt and burn the earth."

"Probably not. Gillian had notes on protective symbols and warding techniques but I haven't quite worked out which ones will be effective." Sam grimaced. "Putting that together is going to take some time."

"This might speed up the process." Dean pulled an amulet out of his pocked and dangled it in the air. "I picked it up from the guy we just saw, the one who got out. I swiped it off of a table in the lounge," he said in response to Angela's quizzical look, his patented 'it's not my fault, I swear' look stamped on his face.

Sam grabbed the amulet and felt everything fall into place as he squinted at the design. "So that's what she decided on," he muttered and grabbed a notebook off its precarious perch on the table. He opened it to a specific page and placed it carefully back down on another stack. Dean and Angela bent forward as Sam pointed at a specific illustration. "This is what we'll need to go in there and get them out."

Angela looked at him, her eyes swirled with emotions and at their root a grim determination that he recognized from his own mirror.

"Well then, let's get this show on the road."


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five**

_November 23, 1996_

_Thomas F. Keegan Nature Park_

_Lansing, MI_

Bare branches creaked over Gillian's head, a dull, scratching noise that echoed through her bones. She stood, poised on the edge of the asphalt, and stared into the blackness between the trees. The river flowed to her right and dogs howled somewhere behind the tree-lined ridge far to her left. There were houses up there full of families placidly asleep in their beds. She'd never felt so alone.

She flicked her flashlight on; its dull yellow beam only made the night darker. She took a deep breath and stepped into the woods.

It was entirely still underneath the dead, gray boughs. Brown leaves scrunched under her feet, the decaying layers a thick, wet matting after weeks of rain. All she could hear were her own ragged breaths; it was as if she was the only living thing left.

During the long walk from her house she'd almost talked herself out of going at all. She'd nearly turned around a hundred times but something kept her on her path, forced one foot into movement followed by another. Coming down here was foolish, she knew it was, dangerous in a way she still couldn't quite understand, but she also knew that she'd never move beyond the sound of her father's screams if she didn't do this. She didn't want to die but she couldn't live with her memories any longer.

A twig snapped behind her and she jumped. She spun around, the flashlight beam ricocheting off of the tree trunks that penned her in. She swallowed the shouts that threatened to escape her throat. She couldn't see anything but she could feel it out there, its breath almost tangible on the back of her neck.

She turned back around. Her heart pounded in her ears; she wanted to run, to scream, but instead she carefully stepped forward. She'd walk to the other side of the woods and back again. Whatever happened, happened.

Her foot caught on a hidden root and she stumbled, flashlight flying out of her hands. Her head collided with a tree trunk and she sat down, hard, ephemeral starbursts exploding in her eyes. She shook her head and blinked her eyes rapidly in an attempt to clear her vision and knock the sudden ringing out of her ears. The taste of metal coated the back of her throat.

She blinked again and her eyes cleared. She was surrounded by darkness. Slowly, her eyes adjusted and she could see the light from the nearly full moon stream past hibernating trees. It was brighter than she'd thought it would be; it was like standing on another world, everything turned cold and silver. She stood up slowly, her hand scraped against the rough bark of the maple tree holding her up.

A deep growl shuddered from behind her back. She knew that noise. She spun around, her lungs frozen and her eyes full of tears.

The monster stared at her, lips curled, fangs gleaming in the moonlight. It had been waiting for her.

* * *

Dean ghosted through the trees. He could hardly hear his own feet as he skidded from trunk to trunk, shotgun held ready in his hands. Dad was somewhere further north, towards the river. The forest wasn't huge, it was nothing compared to some of the places they'd hunted through in the past, but it was big enough to get lost in, especially with the moonlight playing tricks with his peripheral vision.

He stopped and crouched beside a fallen tree. Something had stood there, something heavy with feet bigger than anything Dean had seen before, except for those grizzly tracks Dad'd found during a training run in Colorado.

Dean grimaced and wiped rotting leaf slime off of his hand. Maybe the fucker was around here, maybe it wasn't. No way to tell how old the footprint was. Shame it hadn't laid some scat out for him to find, but that'd just make things too fucking easy, or something.

But any direction was better than nothing at all. And if it'd stuck around after chomping down on Dewar then there was a decent chance that it was still waiting around for Victim #3. Dean stood up and headed further west. Dad was probably right about the beast setting up a den somewhere by the bridge. It was a pretty cushy area to hole up for the winter, surrounded by a tasty smorgasbord of all the suburbanites it could get.

He stepped around a tree and froze, gun brought to bear on the scene frozen in front of him. He almost couldn't believe what he was seeing—that Gillian chick standing in front of the thing that looked like a mutant wolverine on steroids. They stared at each other like they were the only two beings in the world.

"Move!" Dad's order cut through the air and shattered time back into motion. The monster howled and sprang at the same time that Gillian took off running to her left, straight at Dean.

"Come on, come on!" Dean's words were muffled under the sound of Dad's shotgun booming. The creature howled again but it didn't go down. It skidded and turned, its disjointed leaps quickly eating up the space between it and the girl.

Dean grabbed her arm as she ran up and pushed her past him. The thing was nearly on top of them, a sickly, hungry light in its eyes.

Dean squared his shoulders and watched it come. It was the only thing he could see, the adrenaline in his blood focusing his eyes and clearing his head. He took a deep breath, his heart a steady pulse in his ears, and pulled the trigger.

The blast echoed through the dell, and the thing howled again, a horrific sound. It fell to the ground and twitched, a labored attempt to pick itself up. Dad fired from its other side and it stilled. It didn't get up again.

Dean automatically pulled the lighter fluid out of the pack on his back. He doused the still-warm carcass, his nose twitching with the combined attack of the acrid accelerant and the rotten stench that swirled around the dead body.

As Dean stepped away Dad struck the matchbook and dropped it in one smooth motion. The beast burst into flames. Dean watched it burn, fire wrapping around fur and muscle, consuming everything in sight.

He looked up and met Dad's eyes, identical grins on their faces. Nothing felt better than a job well done.

Dad's eyes caught on something over Dean's shoulder and the grin leached off of his face. Dean turned, his eyes dazed for a second from the lack of light. Gillian stood behind him, half-hidden behind a tree. Her face was pale and firelight danced in her eyes as she stared at what was left of the thing that had killed her father.

Dad clapped him on the shoulder, his hand steady and warm. "Come on," he said, his voice pitched low for Dean's ears only even though he never looked away from the girl. "We need to get her home."

Dean nodded and hiked the bag back up on his shoulder with a grunt. He watched as Dad walked up to Gillian and carefully turned her away from the dwindling blaze. Dean followed them out of the woods.

* * *

_September 14, 2007_

_Hart, MI_

Angela pulled at the collar of the t-shirt she'd swiped from Gillian's closet. It had seen better days, the large yellow, block 'M' print-screened on the front was scored and faded from many grueling years of wear and tear and the tag constantly scraped along the back of her neck. She remembered Dad buying it for Gillian right after she'd gotten her acceptance letter to U-M. He'd been so proud.

The sun from the west was dazzlingly bright as it shone straight down the empty country highway. Angela put her hand up to shield her eyes and squinted at the tree line. She could just make out the two figures pacing along the edge of the forest. Occasionally one or both of them would stop and they would have a silent conversation that she couldn't hope to understand.

Yesterday she would've had herself committed for trusting two random guys who'd broken into her sister's house and lied about being federal agents, but today they were all she had.

They headed back up towards the car. At some point during the afternoon they'd changed into jeans and generic tees. The difference in the way they held themselves made it apparent just how much a costume the suits were. It also made them look more dangerous, a fact that, perversely, made Angela feel more confident.

She stood up from her lean against the car as Dean popped the trunk open. He handed Sam a shotgun and a loaded duffle and grabbed a shotgun for himself. They loaded the barrels in movements choreographed by what could only be years of experience. She mused, in passing, on what kind of a life would have been necessary to give two brothers such mechanical gestures and identical expressions of deadly focus. She wondered what a life like that would have done to her and her sister.

Dean looked up at her when he was done, his hand already resting on another of the many firearms that littered the trunk. "You know how to shoot?" he asked brusquely, a critical look on his face.

Angela shrugged. "Not so much, no." She really should've taken Uncle Dave up on his offer to take her to the shooting range.

Dean only nodded in reply. He and Sam shared another significant look while she played with the amulet that hung around her neck on a piece of twine. They'd spent what was left of the afternoon turning circles of cardboard into something that might protect them, that might help her get her sister back. Anything was better than nothing.

The trunk slammed shut like a gun shot. Wordlessly they turned towards the forest.

The forest was stuffy and still. Angela could feel sweat drip down her back as she stepped under the leafy canopy, her chest tight. The rhythmic stomp of Dean's boots in front and Sam's behind was all she could hear. It felt like the world was holding its breath.

They walked like that for about fifteen minutes, maybe half an hour, tromping through saplings and undergrowth. With each step she took the knot in Angela's throat tightened, each step heavier under the weight of invisible eyes. She realized that she was humming to herself, a quiet tune that was both familiar and alien.

"Dean." Sam's voice cut through the air, jarring her out of her introspection. He'd stopped a few feet behind her and was crouched down, examining something on the ground. He looked up when Dean came alongside him. "Look at this."

Dean squatted beside him. His fingers ran lightly over the little white flowers almost buried under dead leaves and pine needles. "Looks like trailing arbutus." He looked at Sam. "It's for protection, right?"

Sam nodded and stood up. "The lore also says that it was sacred to the Ojibwe and Potowatomi. They believed it grew where their gods walked. And look at how it's growing," Sam gestured along the ground to either side where the flowers were growing in a narrow line.

"It's like a border, or a wall." Dean's face was as serious as his tone. "Wonder if it's meant to keep something in or out."

Angela frowned and surveyed the area, a new paranoia coloring her vision. Her eyes narrowed and she stepped up to a nearby tree, putting a hand up to feel the bark. "The trees have changed." She glanced over at the guys but didn't wait for them to respond. "When we started they were mostly deciduous, maple and oak, but these are all pine. And so old-" Her voice trailed off. The music that had been tickling at the edges of her mind suddenly strengthened, a radio finally catching on the right signal. "Can you hear that?"

She turned slowly in a circle, her eyes closed. The music strummed down her nerves, her entire body sparked in anticipation. It was there, so close. "The trees are singing," she whispered, hardly aware that she'd spoken at all.

She jerked to a stop. Her eyes opened wide and she smiled at Sam and Dean. Everything was clear. "I can see Gillian." She felt like the entire forest was glowing.

Immediately she spun around and took off deeper into the forest. Her sister was waiting for her.

* * *

"Fuck!" Sam shouted, an involuntary reaction more than a conscious statement, as he started after Angela. Of course they weren't going to go in, save some people, and get out again in time to get some pie before the diner closed. He'd never been that lucky.

Pine branches slapped against his face as he ran. He'd lost sight of Angela almost immediately, the dark blue of her t-shirt blending seamlessly into the growing darkness under the pine boughs. He ran on blind instinct. She couldn't be that far away.

His foot slammed through a fragile film of pine needles on the forest floor and he stumbled through over the suddenly precarious ground. He fell forward, barely staying upright by grabbing at a nearby tree. He pulled back with a sharp hiss and stared at his hand. It felt like something had bitten him but there was only loose bark on his palm.

Dean grabbed his elbow. "You okay?"

"Yeah," Sam grunted but he'd already forgotten about his near tumble. There was something off in Dean's voice.

He peered closely at his brother. Dean was pale in the deepening twilight, and distracted. His hand was still on Sam's elbow, grip sure and steady, but his eyes jumped chaotically from shadow to shadow.

"Dude, what is it?" Sam couldn't keep the concern out of his voice. Dean wouldn't be this worked up over a couple trees.

Dean shook his head and pulled his hand back, his movements jerky and broad. "Just couldn't see you there for a second. Do you-" He stopped abruptly and grimaced. He glanced around the forest again, forehead creased in concentration. "I don't think these things are worth shit." He flicked the homemade amulet tied around his neck. "Cause there's something out there saying my name. And I keep seeing things, people, out of the corner of my eyes."

Sam frowned. He looked around, but if there was anything there he couldn't see it. He closed his eyes for a second and listened. His frown deepened. "I can't see anything, but it's like the air is buzzing." He huffed out a breath, frustrated by his verbal inadequacy.

When he opened his eyes his attention was caught by the branches above him and the way they moved, each one swaying in a different direction than its neighbor. At that moment it struck him as communication.

"I think we should go this way," Dean muttered and started walking forward without a backward glance.

Sam followed closely behind him, his hand firmly on his shoulder. They had only walked a few feet when the forest opened up. They stepped into a circular clearing, their eyes blinking in sudden sunlight. The vastness of the open sky was overwhelming after the sweltering silence of the trees.

A single pine tree stood in the center of the clearing. It towered over everything else, the only fixed point in a place that changed every time Sam blinked. The ground wasn't covered in grass but rather a carpet of trailing arbutus, the color somehow foreboding. The air was almost too thick to breathe.

Sam's eyes cleared, and the dark figures under the tree coalesced. His grip on Dean's shoulder tightened involuntarily. Angela was kneeling by the trunk, both of her hands gripping a leg that seemed to be growing out of a knot in the tree. He didn't doubt the impulse that told him that it was Gillian who she was clinging to so tightly.

Sam surged past his brother. He took a few loping steps across the open space and then jumped. It was like he'd been shot with an electric current. He swore and turned back to his brother, suddenly anxious because Dean wasn't there.

Dean remained at the edge of the clearing, eyes open and completely still. Roots had grown over his feet.

"Dean!" Sam shouted, voice hoarse and deep. Dean didn't respond, didn't look at him or blink. Sam could feel the rage building in his chest. This wasn't happening, he wouldn't let it happen.

He strode across the clearing, his anger feeding on every shock that spiked through him with every step. He bent under the low-hanging boughs and then stood to his fullest height, shoulders squared. He looked down at Angela's dirt and tear-streaked face. A distant part of his mind registered his lack of sympathy and then disregarded the information as irrelevant.

"It won't let her go," Angela sobbed. "I keep pulling and pulling but I can't make her move. It wants to make her like them." Her eyes strayed from his face to the branches above them.

Sam looked up. His mouth clenched. Emaciated bodies swayed over their heads and dead eyes shined down on them. He recognized one small body; Danny Owen wouldn't be going home again.

He knelt down and grabbed Angela's shoulders but she didn't respond to him, all of her attention focused on something he couldn't see. He shook her roughly, unmindful of the force he used. "What does it want? Tell me!" he shouted.

She finally looked at him, eyes distracted and dim. "It wants worship," she whispered, terrified.

A sharp growl ripped from his chest. He'd give it worship. He pulled a red can of lighter fluid out of bag. He'd purify the whole goddamn forest.

"No!" Angela screamed. Sam ignored her, she and her sister weren't important. Only Dean mattered.

Angela surged to her feet as the buzzing in his ears rose to a deafening pitch. She threw herself against the tree, her arms hardly spanning a quarter of its width in a desperate embrace. Her hair whipped in a sudden gale. Sam pulled a lighter out of his pocket.

"I'll do it, I'll do whatever you want," she shrieked to whatever was listening. "Just don't take her away from me!"

The world crashed into blackness.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six**

_She picks at a seam in the car's leather upholstery. Her head is bent, she is so tired, more tired than she's ever been. So much has happened, so many things have changed, and she's only now beginning to realize what it all means. She knows so much more than she did, and not nearly enough._

_The car vibrates under her, the engine rumbling down silent streets. It's strangely soothing. When it stops it's like electricity shoots through her body. This is it, she has to stand up and face what is waiting for her._

_She doesn't move for a few, timeless seconds. She can't. She knows that when she opens the car door everything will come crashing down. The dead will still be dead, and she'll finally have to deal with that fact._

_She looks up and catches Dean's eyes in the second before he looks away. The startling empathy she sees puts steel back in her spine. She can do this._

_It's cold in the gray pre-dawn. She stands in the yard and watches the black car pull away. She grips her sister's hand and doesn't let go as the car disappears down the road. She's not sure if she can go back to her old life, or even if she wants to, but she'll protect what she has left, no matter the cost._

Gillian blinked her eyes awake. The tattered remnants of her dream floated around her head, the past and the present seeping into each other. She lay still for a moment and tried to pierce the confusion in her mind—she wasn't entirely sure where she was. Everything felt distant and muzzy.

She groaned and stiffly pulled herself up into a sitting position. From the new vantage she could recognize her living room; dusty sunlight streamed through a crack in the blinds and the television stood silent sentry over her feet. For some reason she'd decided to sleep on the pull-out bed in the couch.

Gillian jerked when a dull moan resonated from under the covers. She was really off her game if she hadn't noticed someone else in bed with her. What had she done last night?

The bed shifted and the blankets moved aside to reveal her little sister. Angie looked awful—her hair tangled Medusa-like around her head and deep circles under her eyes.

"Angie?" Gillian asked. She swallowed hard and tried to work some moisture down her throat; her voice felt like it hadn't been used in days. "When did you get here?"

Angie sat up and stared at her sister, a hundred emotions chasing themselves across her face. "When did I-?" Her eyes flared with righteous fury. "When did you lose your goddamn mind? What the fuck were you thinking going into that forest on your own? You could've died in there and I never would've known what happened to you and what the fuck?"

Angie shoved herself out of bed and stalked over to the kitchen. Gillian sat in shocked silence. She ransacked her memory for any hint about what had Angie so worked up. Foggy images started to coalesce, something about the forest and Luisa's cousin. She could just see that strange, deadly clearing and the bodies in the tree. The only way she'd been able to get Hector out had been to trade places with him.

"Holy shit," Gillian whispered. She looked up at Angie who was now standing by the bed, holding out a cup of water. She took the cup and sipped before continuing. "Angie, what did you do?"

Angie sighed and pulled over a chair. "I did what I had to do, what you couldn't do. I gave that thing what it wanted."

"But what? How?" Gillian stopped, she didn't even know what to ask. All of her research hadn't prepared her for the reality of what she'd found in the forest, hadn't even hinted that there could be something like that hiding in the trees. All she could remember from her own experience was being wrapped in music, drained and insensible. There hadn't been anything there to bargain with.

"There was a voice," Angie's voice softened and her eyes went distant. "But not really, it was more of a thought. It wanted me, but it couldn't take me like it took you and all of those other people. I can still hear it." She blinked and her eyes refocused on the present. "I could've walked away, it couldn't stop me. But I wouldn't leave you like that."

Gillian closed her eyes. "Oh, Angie, you shouldn't have done it." She'd worked so hard to keep her little sister safe.

"Oh, that's right, you're the only one who gets to throw her life away, who gets to run away to the other side of the state and have a massive sulk." Angie's voice cut into Gillian's chest, the sarcasm razor-sharp. "Well screw that. Screw you and your issues and everything. You left me and I needed you. I had to grow up and be an adult while you tried your damnedest to follow Dad. And, fuck-" She broke off, her voice suddenly hoarse. The bed-springs creaked and shifted as Angie sat down.

Gillian opened her eyes. Tears leaked down Angie's cheeks, her face a mask of anger and desperation.

"I don't know what happened to me out there, I don't know what's going to happen to me or if I can ever leave again, or what. But I do know that we're going to face this together. No more secrets."

Gillian nodded, tears of her own springing into her eyes. She grabbed Angie's hand. "Yeah, together," she rasped. "No more secrets." She wouldn't leave her alone again.

The stairs creaked, breaking their moment. Angie ducked her head and Gillian looked up. There was a guy at the foot of the steps that went up to her bedroom, his mouth twisted in an uncomfortable, bemused half-grin. Something about him pricked at the edge of her memory.

"Hope I'm not interrupting. Just looking for some coffee," he said, his eyes darting from one sister to the other.

"Go ahead and make some, Dean," Angie replied, absently wiping her face. "There's stuff in the cupboard."

"Awesome," he said and turned away.

Gillian stared at his back as he pulled the canister out of the cupboard and blinked rapidly. The past and the present collapsed and she was pretty sure that this was what it must feel like to go insane.

"Dean Winchester?" she gasped. His shoulders stilled but he didn't turn around. She looked back at Angie, somewhat surprised to be met with a look of utter confusion. "Dean Winchester helped you come and get me?"

Gillian put her head in her hands as laughter bubbled up out of her chest. Once she started she couldn't stop. Her life was way too friggin' weird.

* * *

It was a gray day; the sun struggled to slip through the low-hanging clouds that covered the sky. The air was heavy with moisture and still, as if the wind was worried that a stray puff would bring the heavens pouring down.

Sam slumped against the dusty cabin, sweat dripping down his back. He watched Dean and Gillian as they puttered around the Impala's open trunk; Dean pointed to various objects, his mouth moving a mile a minute, and Gillian jotted down notes in a battered journal. It was always good to see how much Dean really, truly enjoyed his job.

The screen door to Sam's left slammed open and shut as Angela came outside. She glanced over at the hunters' conference by the car and then elected to parallel his position by leaning a few feet to his left.

"So," she said, eyes focused on the trees across the yard.

"So," he repeated, tone casual. Curiosity thrummed under his skin but he didn't want to push too hard and scare her away. Besides, she had that confessional look in her eyes; he'd seen it often enough in the girls Dean picked up, not to mention nearly every victim they'd ever interviewed.

Cicadas buzzed loudly and the seconds ticked by. Sam glanced at Angela out of the corner of his eye. Her mouth was fixed in a hard, flat line, her face twisted into an expression that promised either tears or screams.

Neither appeared. She swallowed and took a deep breath, her face cleared into a rueful grin. "You're pretty good at the interrogation thing," she chuckled a little wetly. "Ever think of going into the fascinating world of psychology? I have a strong feeling that a spot in Michigan State's graduate program is about to open up."

Sam grinned. "Nah," he drawled. "I've kind of got a full-time job right now, but thanks for the offer." He shifted a little so that he could see her. "What happened last night?"

Angela looked up at him, her eyes wide. "I've been trying to put my memories together and make sense of it all. But I guess 'sense' is a relative word." She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. When her eyes reopened they were unfocused and dim. "There's something out there in the forest, something immensely old and terrifyingly lonely. It might be like what you said—some kind of manifestation of the earth itself, or maybe not, maybe it was created by the people who dreamed it into being. All I know is that it's been lashing out, looking for someone to fill a void. It needs us, needs worship or veneration or maybe connection. I guess Gillian and all those other poor people could hear it lashing out but couldn't give it what it wanted."

"What did it want?" Sam asked quietly.

She made a noise that was half a sob. "Me, I guess. I can feel it in the back of my head; it's been there ever since I gave in. I think it's a part of me now, or I'm a part of it."

Memories flashed through his mind; Angela yelling into the wind and then the sharp crack of night falling. When his vision had cleared Angela had been seated on the ground with her sister's head in her lap, and Dean had been at his shoulder, anger and outrage radiating from his body. Angela had lead them out of the forest, and he hadn't wondered at the ease with which she'd guided them back to the car, too wrapped up in relief at Dean's relative safety and bewilderment over what had just occurred. She hadn't stumbled, not once, even though the flashlights wouldn't work.

"So, what, it's going to kill you now? And we're supposed to let that happen?" he demanded, outrage laced through every syllable.

Her eyes flickered and he knew that she remembered what he'd done, the callous way he'd been ready to burn everything to the ground, her sister included.

"I don't think so. If it wanted to kill me it wouldn't have let any of us out." She shook her head. "No, I think I've already made the sacrifice it wanted. But I don't think I can leave, I don't think it would let me. And someone has to make sure that more people don't die out there." She glanced at her sister. "Anyway, I have to stick around to make sure that Gillian doesn't pull anymore idiotic stunts."

"I-" Sam stopped abruptly, suddenly certain that sympathy was the last thing she wanted. "Yeah, good luck with that," he joked instead, cutting a quick glance at his own brother. He had more than a little experience with recalcitrant older siblings. "And you're okay with it?"

"No, but I'll have to get used to it." She huffed out a tired breath, the back of her head thunking against the wall behind her. "Man, Mom is going to flip out when I drop out of school. Thanksgiving is going to suck."

Sam didn't reply. Mothers and their responses were something completely outside of his field of experience.

They stood for a few minutes in companionable silence. He wasn't shocked by what she'd done. It was the kind of thing you did for the people you loved, for your family. He only hoped, for her sake, that she'd eventually come to grips with her new life.

"Angie!" Gillian's shout brought them both back to the present. "You have got to come over here and see this trunk."

Angela grinned at Sam, a familiar mixture of embarrassment and love. She shrugged and headed towards her sister.

Sam followed more slowly. Dean detached himself from Gillian's excited lecture and met him a few feet from the car. His look of self-satisfaction slowly melted away as he got close enough to be infected by Sam's more solemn mood.

"You doin' okay?" he asked with a concerned shoulder bump.

"Yeah," Sam nodded with a slight smile. "It's just been a weird couple of days."

"Tell me about it," Dean half-laughed. He jerked his head towards the car. "You ready to hit the road?"

"You bet." It was funny how the prospect of the open high way was instinctively comforting. After all, moving on was really the only constant he'd ever had.

The grin returned to Dean's face and he went back to the trunk. The Dewars stepped away as he did a scattershot visual inventory before slamming it shut. He capped it off with an affectionate pat for his girl.

He turned to where Gillian and Angela stood. "You've got Bobby's number, right? He should be able to hook you up with those books I was telling you about."

Gillian nodded and tapped her journal. "Yeap. I'll give him a call right away. If there are as many demons out there as you think, I'll need to be prepared."

"_We'll_ need to be prepared," Angela emphasized. The sisters shared a long, meaningful look before Gillian looked away and nodded.

Gillian briskly cleared her throat. "Well, next time you guys are in the area give us a call. I think we owe you a beer or ten."

Dean opened his door. "We'll do that. Just don't get eaten by anymore trees. Cause that's just wrong."

"Ho Tom Bombadil," Gillian agreed with a grin.

"Tom Bombadillo," Sam replied. He couldn't help laughing at the identical looks of confusion stamped on Dean and Angela's faces.

Dean rolled his eyes in annoyance at his geek brother and slid into the car. Sam promptly followed, the door shutting with a tired groan.

The familiar purr of the engine rumbled up Sam's spine; he'd never admit to Dean how truly soothing that noise was. He glanced at Dean as his brother threw the car into gear.

"Do you think there are more people out there—that we've helped, that Dad helped—that have turned out like them?" He couldn't stop asking these questions, poking at and examining the parts of their lives that were the hardest to comprehend and endure. Sometimes he wished he could be more like Dean and simply accept things for what they were.

Involuntarily, Dean's eyes flicked to the rearview mirror. "I hope not," he grimly replied, fierce lines etched around his mouth.

Sam glanced in the side mirror. The sisters remained in front of the house, a rising wind plucking at their hair. Angela gripped Gillian's wrist, and they seemed to be holding a silent conversation even though neither of them looked away from the departing car.

With a jolt the relentless ticking of a clock swelled in his ears. He looked at his brother's face silhouetted by the gray light, the way Dean's eyes shifted as he slipped into the worn habits of driving and the road, of finding new hunts over the next hill. Dean popped a tape into the player as rain started spilling over the windshield. Bon Scott screeched out of the speakers and he settled more comfortably into his seat.

Sam refused to lose him. He'd do whatever he had to to keep him from the pit. Dean would just have to deal with it. Anything else was unacceptable.

The car squealed onto the highway and sped off towards the horizon.

_Fin_


End file.
